


Hearth-Warmed Chakra

by theheartofthekoko



Category: Naruto
Genre: Hashirama and Madara share braincells, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tobirama is accidentally ridiculous and doesn't even know it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26742394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theheartofthekoko/pseuds/theheartofthekoko
Summary: Tobirama grows up with Madara's chakra as one of his only comforts. So, when he has a choice between letting Madara die and saving his life, there's almost no choice at all.Or: Tobirama's infatuated with Madara's chakra. This changes things.
Relationships: Senju Tobirama & Uchiha Izuna, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 41
Kudos: 475





	Hearth-Warmed Chakra

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for Tobirama being infatuated with Madara's chakra came from [KeanBlade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeanBlade). If you haven't checked out their work, be sure to!

(Tobirama falls in love with a chakra before he falls in love with a boy). He comes into the world eyes closed and wailing. Everything is too loud, too bright as he’s overloaded with too much information for his newborn mind to contain. He doesn’t stop crying for days. Neither does his Mother. Butsuma threatens to drown him. Hashirama, three and sobbing, stands in front of his small body with arms outstretched until Butsuma goes, and Tobirama is safe.

He cries for weeks, then stops for years. No one ever knows why. Tobirama doesn’t have any words, and by the time he does, he knows enough about the shinobi world and its dangers to tuck the fire-warmed stone chakra he’d sought out in the world and clung to, deep within his heart where he can keep it safe. (He tells Toka, words hushed and halting. She kisses his forehead and smiles. He’s scared but can’t regret it).

He grows and learns, right alongside his brothers under Butsuma’s unrelenting tutelage. It hurts, but he survives. Kawarama doesn’t, and Tobirama feels a piece of him fracture as he feels his chakra flicker and go out. Too far away to help, he crumples to the floor and shakes, until he comes back to himself enough to reach out to that warm chakra and ground himself in it. Even with its heat, he can’t stop shivering. Kawarama was only seven. Itama dies not long after.

Weeks later, when he feels Hashirama’s chakra signature clash and then settle with the hearth-warm signature down at the river, he feels excitement bubble up. But Hashirama never comes to him, never confides in him. Tobirama’s excitement curdles into resentment as he loses Hashirama’s attention. (He tries his best to suppress the small bit of him that seethes with jealous rage at his brother stealing away the regard of someone who was already so important to him, even without a name or a face. It doesn’t work.)

Butsuma orders him to follow his brother. He does without question, and learns the truth: the warmth that’s kept him grounded, that he’s curled up in on days when everything was too loud, and he could feel himself slipping away across fire country—It’s Madara Uchiha. They fight, and another piece of Tobirama’s heart breaks off.

In the aftermath, he tries to keep his chakra on a leash, but Butsuma is brutal and Hashirama is furious and he just—can’t. He finds solace in Madara’s chakra and tries to forget its source. It doesn’t work. He latched onto the other boy’s chakra before he’d been old enough to know he shouldn’t and now its absence leaves him aching.

Tobirama grows cold and hard. He crosses blades with Izuna again and again, neither one gaining on the other. Across each battlefield, Madara’s fire-warmed comforting chakra blazes into an inferno. It hurts a little to feel it, burns where his own is coiled tight around it, but he can’t make himself let go. He needs to know that they’re both safe, that what remains of his precious people remain intact.

When Butsuma dies, he’s _relieved._ Hashirama leads the clan with a chipper smile and unrelenting care. Tobirama buries himself in parchment and jutsu theory scrolls. He innovates--spends months developing his water-dragon technique. Running through hand signs until they’re fast enough to counter Izuna’s great fireball jutsu, until his hands ache with the strain. He works on edo tensei until he’s exhausted all options for making it _right._ He just wants to see his brothers again. He burns his notes and wakes already shaking from dreams of their anguished faces.

Tobirama develops the hiraishin, and it gives him an unexpected edge. Izuna falters. Tobirama lunges. The blade slides in with a squelching, wet sound, straight through the ribs of the wrong Uchiha because standing before him, is Madara. He drops his hand away from the hilt, a feral, wounded sound escaping Tobirama’s throat as Madara collapses before him, chakra leaking out of him like blood through a sieve. Behind him, Izuna screams.

Tobirama can feel the cold sinking in as that warm chakra bleeds out of the man in front of him (it isn’t supposed to be him, why _him_ ) around the hole he’s put in Madara’s stomach. Tobirama drops to his knees, hands shaking with panic. It isn’t supposed to be like this. Madara chokes up blood. Only when Tobirama meets his eyes does he realize he’s been talking— “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to; I’m sorry”—a litany of apologies that has Madara smirking.

“Tears for the enemy?” Madara asks, coughing around the blood in his mouth.

Tobirama pulls his blade free, left hand already glowing with iryo ninjutsu. He pours his chakra into the jutsu, barely aware of Izuna cursing behind them or the kunai pressing firmly just below his rib, too weak to break skin. He can feel Madara’s _cold-fading-wrong_ chakra bleeding out of him—he pours more than he rightfully should into the healing. He’s only got this one chance to fix it before Izuna comes to his senses and intervenes to take Madara away where he can’t follow.

His vision greys out around the edges, but the wound is barely an inflamed scar any longer. His eyes slip closed, and he slumps forward into a sharp stab of pain before Izuna yanks him off Madara and flings him bodily away. He springs from the ground on instinct, eyes wide as he watches Izuna pull at Madara’s clothes to get a better look at his wound.

“What the fuck, Senju?” Izuna demands, hands running over the slim scar on his brother’s ribs.

Before Tobirama can think of anything to say, mind still woozy from chakra depletion, Madara makes a whining noise and pulls his brother down into a crushing hug, ignoring Izuna’s squawk and flailing arms. “I thought I was going to lose you,” Madara says, voice low and scratchy.

“Me? You’re the one that had that bastard’s sword through you!” Izuna replies, hand smacking gently at Madara’s shoulder to get him to let go.

Tobirama takes a few steps backward, legs wobbling, feeling very much like he’s intruding on something private. His hands still shake slightly—was it the chakra exhaustion or the panic at that beloved chakra fading? His foot hits a rock, and he falls backward only to find Toka’s arms around his waist, hauling him back up to lean heavily against her.

“I knew you wanted peace,” Hashirama says, finally arriving on the scene. “Oh, Tobi, I’m so happy!” Only a sharp punch from Toka’s fist stops his lunging bid for a hug. 

“I said no such thing,” Tobirama hisses. Hashirama wilts. Tobirama ignores the little part of his mind that tries to picture Hashirama old and _happy,_ his clan’s children safe, Toka firm and tall and never cut down, and Madara, well. Madara.

“If it wasn’t for peace,” Madara starts—Tobirama turns his head sluggishly back toward the brothers, now standing as Izuna brushes dirt off his brother’s back, “then why?”

Tobirama opens his mouth, brain fuzzy. The truth can’t be born, and his thoughts are moving too sluggishly. He must think of _something._ Something to smooth this whole thing over and make them all dismiss him. Toka smooths her hand down his side, petting him lightly in comfort (in apology). He meets her rueful eyes and knows what she’s about to do. “Toka—”

“Tobira’s always had a weak spot for a nice, warm chakra,” she says.

“What the fuck does that—”

“At least if it’s Madara’s,” she continues, cutting Izuna right off and blithely ignoring his indignant spluttering. “Isn’t that what you said all those years ago, little cousin?”

“I will _gut you_ ,” Tobirama snaps, grabbing for her throat. She bats his hand down, and he flops more heavily into her side with a pitiful whine when his limbs fail to cooperate.

“Excuse me?” Izuna asks, voice low and dangerous in a way it only ever is before he goes in for the kill.

Tobirama peeks over at the pair. Izuna’s fist is clenched around a kunai, mouth snarling in imagined affront. His attention is quickly captivated by Madara; he looks contemplative, unsure in the second their eyes meet before Tobirama shifts his gaze back to Izuna’s kunai when Madara pries it from his strong grip.

“Tobi, why didn’t you tell me you had a crush on my best friend?” Hashirama wails, finally succeeding in tearing Tobirama from Toka’s arms.

“I do _not_ —” Tobirama starts before all the breath is squeezed from his lungs by Hashirama’s enthusiastic hug.

“What do you mean—” “—can’t be serious, Hashi—” “think that’s going a bit far, cousin?” A cacophony of voices all talk over each other; words indecipherable. 

Tobirama hides his face in his brother’s neck, even as he digs his nails viciously into Hashirama’s ribs in retaliation for his thoughtless words. (It isn’t as if it’s true. Madara is an _enemy,_ and he’d picked him when he was a baby. It isn’t his fault that his chakra is just so _warm_ ). His brother doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“Enough,” Tobirama snarls, finally pulling away from his brother just enough to glare at all the shinobi clustered nearby. “This battle is clearly over, so why don’t we just all go to our own compounds and forget that this entire ordeal ever happened.” He says, voice flat and commanding enough that even the Uchiha brothers stop arguing.

They all stand in silence for a few moments before Tobirama sighs, “Hashirama,” causing his brother to perk up like an enthusiastic puppy, “I’m chakra depleted. Please take me home.”

With a happy trill not befitting any shinobi much less a clan head, Hashirama slings him over his shoulders and calls for a retreat. He glances once more at the Uchiha to see Izuna stomping his foot and seemingly scolding Madara as the man crosses his arms and stares after them, face still pensive. Tobirama settles into his brother a little more steadily and mentally plans the evisceration of anyone near enough to hear that little debacle, most notably, Toka.

When he finally finds himself in the relative privacy of Hashirama’s office, he shoves himself brutally out of his brother’s arms and whirls toward Toka with a finger raised in threat.

“How could you?” She takes a step back when he takes one forward, voice deceptively calm so as not to be overheard by eavesdroppers. “That was not your secret to tell.”

“But you admit it’s true?” Toka asks, smile saccharine and false.

“I admit nothing!”

Tobirama twists away from Hashirama who’s attempting both to hold him up and restrain him from murdering Toka where she stands. Finally on his own two feet, he remains upright through sheer stubbornness, rubbing his forehead forcefully, as if he can push on his mounting headache hard enough to obliterate it. He can’t stop seeing Izuna’s abhorrence, Madara’s confusion (was it the thought of someone like him having any feelings at all that is so baffling, or the fact that they are decidedly set on the clan head himself?)

“This is going to be messy,” Tobirama says with a sigh, He drops his hand from his head and catches the tail-end of Toka’s guilty look before she covers it with a jut of her chin.

“But Tobi—“

“No,” Tobirama says, interrupting Hashirama mid word. “I’m going into my room, and if either of you even think of disturbing me for anything less than an attack, your lives will be forfeit.”

“Must you be so dramatic, dear cousin?” Toka calls to his retreating back. He keeps walking, steps as steady as he can make them.

Once he’s safely in his room and with the door firmly shut, he lets his expression fall and stumbles over to his bed to collapse onto it. The ridges of his armor cut painfully into his ribs, but he refuses to move. His hands shake when he reaches up to brush a lock of hair out of his eyes. Almost on reflex, he extends his senses out toward the Uchiha compound and latches onto Madara in all his overwhelming warmth. He still feels a little muddled around the edges, likely from the chaotic events of the day (all of it is Tobirama’s own fault, from Izuna’s near-death to Madara’s own wounds, all the way down to Toka’s insipid _words_ ) but still pleasantly warm. Despite the discomfort of his body and the turmoil of his mind, he drifts off into a sound sleep with the feel of that soothing chakra warming him straight through.

He wakes up to a sore body and a missive from the Uchiha clan head himself.

“What do you mean they want a ceasefire?” Tobirama asks, ripping the scroll from his brother’s hands. He reads over the note, blatantly ignoring Hashirama’s insipid concern over the state of his armor—“Tobi did you fall asleep in your armor _again?_ I thought we’d talked about this, that’s not good for you, you know! You need to be more responsible!”—and strides out of the room to find Toka. Hashirama follows in his wake, still bemoaning the state of his dress. “Have you shown this to Toka yet?” Tobirama asks, waving the scroll in his brother’s face.

“No, of course I found you first!”

“You mean you wanted me to be there just in case Toka’s reaction was violent?”

The sheepish smile is confirmation enough. Not bothering to respond, he rushes through the compound, ignoring the alarmed looks he gets from his fellow clansmen at the battle armor he’s still wearing, dirty and bloody from last night’s battle. He strides into Toka’s normal morning training spot to find her performing swift katas, brow sweaty. He shoves the scroll into her hands without a word. She raises her eyebrows, eyeing him critically, but he just crosses his arms and glares her down until she gives up and unrolls the scroll. By the time she’s rolled it back up, she’s doubled over and laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” Hashirama whines, defensive about what he clearly views as the first steps to an overture of peace.

“That damned Uchiha has it as bad as you do!” she exclaims. Toka straightens and slaps him on the back hard enough to send him sprawling if he hadn’t planted his feet in anticipation of such an act. “He’s seriously going to issue a ceasefire just because he wants in your pants?”

“What do you mean?” Hashirama asks. He crosses his arms in his usual attempt at intimidation, but his blatant pout makes him come across far too childish to pull it off. “Madara didn’t even mention Tobi.”

“Oh, come on. You think it’s a coincidence that he proposed this right after that little show yesterday?”

“Fuck off, Toka,” Tobirama says.

If—and that’s a big if—this has anything to do with him, it’s simply the obvious catalyst of him saving the Uchiha Clan head’s life, not some unfounded accusations of him having a crush on said man. (There is no crush, no mater what Toka or Hashirama now claim. Maybe his feelings have been muddied a bit with him using the man’s chakra as a crutch for all these years. And maybe it’s hard to be wholly indifferent to a man when you’re so infatuated with his chakra, but that in no way means he has a _crush_ on Madara Uchiha of all people!) He’s just incurred enough good will for the man to send up the proverbial white flag.

“You should be happy, little cousin,” Toka says, smirking at him in a frankly malicious way. “The man of your dreams is finally not going to be your enemy.”

“Fuck off.”

He walks away, Hashirama’s happy squealing and Toka’s cackling audible all the way back to his room. He slams the door behind him and decides to put it all out of his mind. It’ll blow over in a few days, and everything will be the way it’s always been: The Uchiha trying to kill them all, and his potentially embarrassing feelings for their clan head buried deep within and decidedly unremarked upon.

Things do not go back to normal. If anything, they get _worse._ The Uchiha follows up the ceasefire with a request for peace talks, then negotiations on where to meet. Toka calls them love letters. Hashirama cries every time the messenger hawk lands on his arm. Mito’s taken to patting Tobirama’s shoulder consolingly every time she sees him as he audibly plans, listening supportively as he plans his entire family’s demise.

“They’re official documents, not _love letters,_ ” Tobirama says.

“Sure, lover-boy,” Toka replies with a cackle.

Hashirama is signing his name at the bottom of his return letter with a flourish, his chin in his hands as he stares dreamily down at the paper. “If anyone’s lover-boy, it’s him,” Tobirama says, waving his hand in his brother’s direction.

Toka doesn’t reply—she can’t when she knows he’s right.

“Take this as fast as you can, beautiful hawk!” Hashirama says, cooing at the bird perched on his desk. “My dearest brother can’t be with his boyfriend until we figure this out!”

Tobirama gives up. This is his life now, murder plans notwithstanding. He turns on his heel and walks out the door.

It all comes to a head on the first day of peace talks. The Senju arrive in the pre-selected clearing first. Tobirama stews in awkward foreboding as he feels Madara’s chakra approaching. This is slated to be the most uncomfortable meeting he’s ever attended in his life, with Toka unsubtly elbowing him at every turn, further airing his dirty laundry for all of the Uchiha clan to hear—and if a tiny part of him is bracing for the hurt of Madara’s disdain, well. That’s his own business, isn’t it?

When the delegation finally arrives, it’s…weird. As expected, Izuna glares with murderous intent while Hikaku tries to reign him in with quiet words. What’s unexpected is the way Madara’s eyes go to him first, even before Hashirama, as his eyes run up and down his form as if he’s checking for injuries. He tries not to blush and largely succeeds.

The rest of the meeting continues as expected, but it goes off the rails before they part ways once more. While Madara is attempting to say a formal goodbye and Hashirama is blubbering all over him, Izuna marches up to him in purposeful, homicidal steps.

“Stay away from my brother,” Izuna says with a finger jab to his chest for emphasis.

Tobirama takes a startled step back. He tenses as he notices members of both their clans readying for an impromptu battle that would be a disaster at a peace talk. Toka’s hand is hidden within her kunai pouch and beside her, Hikaku has his behind his back, readying his blade. In contrast, Hashirama appears not to have even noticed, yammering away in Madara’s ear as the man watches the proceedings with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tobirama replies.

“Oh, don’t give me that innocent act, bastard!” Izuna jabs his finger in his chest once more. Toka yells in protest, pulling a kunai free of his pouch, but Izuna doesn’t turn, either too focused on Tobirama to care about his untimely demise, or unaware of it entirely. “I remember what that harpy you call a cousin said!”

“And you trust the word of a Senju enough to act on it?”

“More than yours!”

“Shouldn’t you be able to pick out lies when you hear them?” Tobirama asks, voice dripping with contempt. “I thought you were a spy master. Wasn’t that one of the selling points your brother used for this stupid village proposal those idiots are so atwitter over?”

Izuna’s lips twitch. Tobirama marks it as a win, as the tension in the clearing drops a couple degrees. “They are idiots, aren’t they?”

Oh, no, were they bonding? Tobirama refuses to bond with Izuna of all people. (He wasn’t counting it as a point in his favor in Madara’s books—he _wasn’t_.)

Hashirama takes this as his cue to finally pay attention and begins loudly defending both his and Madara’s characters. In turn, Madara rubs his head tiredly. Tobirama smiles. “Pot stirrer, aren’t you?”

When Izuna turns to look at their brothers, his smile only grows wider. “Eh, I call it like I see it.”

Somehow, they all get out of there with their skin and dignities still intact. And the next meeting. And the one after that. If it weren’t for Madara’s newfound obsession with staring at Tobirama when he thought he could get away with it, Tobirama would think that everyone had forgotten the whole embarrassing debacle entirely—except Toka. She would _die_ before she dropped this and is officially his least favorite.

“Your boyfriend was making bedroom eyes at you again,” she says teasingly. “When are you going to put that man out of his misery?”

Tobirama keeps walking back towards their compound from the latest, and final, peace talk, determined to ignore her.

“Do you think either of them have thought of the infrastructure for this village at all?” he asks.

“Nice deflection,” she taunts, “but, no. Of course, they haven’t.”

Tobirama sighs, resigned to a long few weeks picking up the slack. Perhaps he could get Mito to help him. Or even Izuna. Now that the whole crush debacle has died down, and their sole purpose in life was no longer to gut each other, they were getting along rather well. He was a little shit, sure, but Tobirama had grown up with Hashirama and it simply doesn’t get any worse than that.

They work well together, drafting laws and architectural plans for the village and invitations to the other clans. It’s days of them sequestering themselves from the rest of their clans and fixing the mess their brothers are making in relative silence. Izuna, of course, has to make things more difficult by making it personal.

“Madara’s never been good at this, you know,” he says, still dutifully scrawling notes in the margins of their work. “When our father used to ask him for strategies in the war, you know, to try to raise a good clan heir, he’d always beg me for ideas.” Tobirama hums in confirmation that he’s listening. Izuna continues, “He found out after a while and threatened to make me clan heir.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“I told him I’d defect if he even tried,” Izuna replies with a laugh.

Tobirama’s own pen stops. He stares blankly down at the page, wondering what it must have been like growing up in the Uchiha compound. If he or Hashirama ever had ever said such a thing to their Father, they’d have been branded traitors and likely sent to their deaths. Well, maybe not Hashirama; the mokuton was too important and Butsuma’s eyes, but Tobirama would have been killed without a moment’s hesitation.

The silence lingers uncomfortably. He looks up to find Izuna staring at him contemplatively. “Hashirama used to do that, too,” Tobirama says.

Izuna laughs. “They really are alike, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know.” Tobirama smiles wryly down at his work and picks up his pen once more. “Hashirama didn’t even think to ask me, I had to suggest it to him, so I still think Madara probably has the brains in that particular duo.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re in _love,_ ” Izuna teases.

Tobirama refuses to talk to him for the rest of the day, no matter how much he wheedles and whines. It’s a productive session.

The next day is less so. They’re stuck trying to work out a village-wide plumbing system and it’s not going well. The longer they look at it, the more they snap at each other, pointing out every little flaw in the other’s plan until a fight breaks out. Punches are thrown, but it turns contained, almost choreographed within a few moves, the brawl flowing into a spar that lasts hours. Izuna wins, and they both sprawl on their backs, papers strewn about and covered in muddy footsteps.

“Do you think this will work?” Tobirama asks.

Izuna looks pointedly around at the destroyed clearing. “I think we’ll all kill each other within a week of moving in.”

They finish up a few days after that, plan after plan after plan—all in the rough draft phases because they can’t finalize anything off-sight and without their leader’s insights, no matter how dense they both are.

Tobirama hands his over to Hashirama with little fanfare. Hashirama shuffles the papers quickly, smile growing wider and wider with each new plan he uncovers.

“Are you trying to woo Madara with your brain, little brother?” he asks teasingly.

“I’m just trying to make sure the whole thing doesn’t go up in flames!”

Hashirama laughs, standing up to pat Tobirama on the shoulder and blatantly ignoring the way his hand is slapped away. “You must really have the Uchiha on your mind if you’re making fire metaphors,” he says, eyes twinkling knowingly.

Tobirama turns tail and walks swiftly away (he’s not fleeing), ignoring Hashirama’s calls of “It’ll work you know. Madara always did like a man with a brain!” and the way it makes his cheeks flush.

All the flat plans on the pages he and Izuna had worked tirelessly over start to come to life a few days later. Buildings spring up as if from nothing under Hashirama’s power, all according to their plans—Hashirama had tried to begin construction without measuring any of the dimensions but was cowed under the combined ire of Izuna and Tobirama.

Now, it’s almost looking like a real village. Still in its bare bones, but there’s the shape of something coming to life around them that he’d never even dreamed of before. And the Uchiha and Senju are working on it side by side. There’d been a few fights, a few heated words, but things are already smoothing over into something more peaceful than he’s ever seen the two clans be.

Tobirama sits up on the highest cliff point overlooking the half-built village and feels hope bubble within him for the first time as the sun rises over his brother’s dream. Maybe he’ll be able to see his brother grow old and _happy_ , Mito by his side, rolling her eyes at his antics. Maybe he’ll be able to see their children grow, watch Toka stay tall and unbent even as her hair grows grey, see his clan happy and whole in this place here, with their biggest enemies. Although, it could all blow up in their faces by tomorrow, but he’s so full of maybes today.

“Thinking deep thoughts, Senju?” Tobirama whips his head away from the view over to where Madara is picking his way across the cliffs edge to gracefully sit a few feet away from him. He hadn’t even felt the other man approaching, so wrapped up in his hopes.

“It’s going well, isn’t it?” Tobirama asks, eyeing the other man.

Madara’s lips turn up at his words, but he doesn’t look his way. “Yeah, it is.”

Tobirama feels his face heating. He looks down at the village once more and tries to ignore the warm presence at his side. It doesn’t work. When Madara finally leaves with a parting farewell, he’s torn between regret and relief.

That theme continues on for the rest of his interactions with the other man, whether they happen to be working on the same building project side by side, or if they’re both in the welcoming party to bring new clans into the slowly-expanding village. And when the village is voting for new leadership, Tobirama stands beside Madara as Hashirama cries in happiness, the newly appointed hokage surrounded by his people.

Tobirama reaches out and clasps Madara’s shoulder hesitantly, touching him for the first time since that fateful day when he’d almost snuffed out that hearth-warm chakra forever. Madara meets his eyes, eyebrows raised in surprise. “It was a close call.”

Madara smiles and turns back to where the villagers are swarming Hashirama. “Can you picture me there, truly?” he asks, quiet in confession. “I never wanted the hat.”

Madara looks content, happy as he watches Hashirama cry with joy. Tobirama feels his heart beat faster and pulls his hand away.

“Regardless,” Tobirama says, clearing his throat uncomfortably, “we’ll need both of us to get that idiot in line.”

Madara laughs. Soon, they help settle Hashirama into his own office, claiming the closest open space as their own shared office. Tobirama settles into life at the tower with quiet companionship, but sometimes, he can swear he catches Madara staring. He doesn’t know what it means. He doesn’t ask, just sinks into his work, and tries to ignore the distracting warmth across the room.

The village expands. Tobirama can feel himself growing content in the new patterns of his life—work at the tower, a new quiet home, new people to protect (not all precious to him, but surely precious to _someone_ ). He takes missions, but never alone anymore. He no longer wonders if he’ll make it home; he always does.

This dream of his brothers has grown bigger than he ever thought it would, it’s grown bigger than him and his precious people. He has a whole _village_ to watch his back now. Tobirama’s edges start to dull, but maybe it’s okay to be a little softer, to be happier in this new place he can call home.

So, when he sees a young Sarutobi boy struggling to walk up a tree, he stops. The boy falls time and time again. Tobirama sighs and steps into the training ground. “You need to use more chakra.”

The boy yelps, falling straight on his back. He whips his head around, eyes widening almost comically when he sees Tobirama standing there, arms crossed. “Are you talking to me?” he asks.

Tobirama lifts a sardonic eyebrow and laughs when the boy blushes. “You need to use a little more chakra or you’ll never make it all the way up.”

He’s there for three more hours, demonstrating and cajoling the young child all the way up to the branches of his tree. The kid smiles so brightly down at him, that he offers to take him out to dinner (it was far too late to make his own now, after all).

As for his own training, Izuna has begun showing up every chance he gets. They’ve always been the match for each other, jutsu and swords clashing, neither gaining the upper hand, up until their last real battle, where Izuna was only saved by Madara’s intervention. Training together is no different, just less deadly. They trade blows and barbs on a weekly basis, walking away amicably after each session almost always ending in a draw.

That changes when Izuna invites him to lunch afterward, a few months into whatever it is they’re doing. Tobirama agrees because he can’t think of a polite way to get out of it. Izuna chatters all the way to the newly opened sushi place they’d decided on. Tobirama hums in all the right places, listening to him ramble about his last mission and the latest prank he’d pulled on Madara. Tobirama thinks they might be…friends. (It’s nice).

So, when the other man doesn’t show up to their weekly sparring session, Tobirama extends his senses until he finds his chakra nestled in the middle of the Uchiha district. He resists the urge to head there right away—no matter how much better things have been, him waltzing into the Uchiha district in broad daylight would cause raised eyebrows at best, and downright panic at worst. Instead, he finds Madara’s chakra in Hashirama’s office in the tower and heads that way.

He pushes the door open—Madara stops talking mid-word, swiveling in his chair to see who is interrupting them. Tobirama closes the door and leans against it as nonchalantly as he can.

“Tobi!” Hashirama exclaims, jumping up from his desk with a grin on his face. “What are you doing here?”

Tobirama doesn’t look away from Madara. “Where’s your brother?”

Madara raises his eyebrows, expression turning sly. “Why, I didn’t know you cared Senju. Izuna will be delighted.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Tobirama scoffs, gaze shifting down and away as he crosses his arms. “I need my sparring partner.”

“Well, you’ll have to find someone else,” Madara says. He pauses, staring Tobirama down, as if daring him to ask. Tobirama presses his lips together and glares. Madara sighs. “He’s sick.”

“How sick?”

“Why, are you worried?” Madara asks, a genuine smile blooming on his face.

Tobirama rolls his eyes, turns around and storms out of the room, ignoring Hashirama chasing after him, asking if he wants to spar. When he shows no sign of letting up, Tobirama hiraishin’s home. He paces back and forth in his kitchen, running his hands through his hair until it’s all standing up on end. (He’s not worried about the damnable Uchiha.) His entire morning has been thrown off, and he finds himself hesitating on what to do next.

With a sigh, he pulls out all the ingredients for a hearty hotpot and gets to work. He might as well indulge if his training regimen is already being thrown off. He very purposefully doesn’t think about the healing properties of the garlic, ginger, and lemon he heaps into the pot—just continues stirring and stirring and absolutely not thinking about Izuna at home alone.

When the concoction has cooked through and cooled just enough to handle, he puts a lid on it, checks the general surroundings of where he can sense Izuna’s chakra, and body flickers to his front door. With a quick, furtive look around (one can never be too cautious), he puts the pot down on the porch, knocks on the door, and body flickers to the empty street, crouching behind a bush to wait. He hears the door open and waits, tense in the prolonged silence that follows. The door closes once more. Tobirama peers from behind his bush to see the pot and Izuna gone. He hiraishin’s back to his own home and goes about his day.

Izuna never says anything to him, but the pot ends up back on his porch, scrubbed clean a few days later, and Izuna’s smile the next time they meet up for a spar seems even brighter than before. And when Izuna tackles Tobirama down after the spar, it feels a little more like a hug than their usual scuffling. Tobirama doesn’t mention it. Neither does Izuna.

He thinks he might be happy, but he’s not sure, having never been so before. He pulls paperwork off Hashirama’s desk and onto his own when his brother seems to be getting behind, makes tea to drop off without a word at Madara’s desk when the other man starts to look a little too wild-eyed. Madara’s been staring at him more as a result, but Tobirama resolutely ignores the whole thing.

On his way home one day, he sees a young Uchiha boy damn-near cut off his own finger throwing a kunai improperly at a target. He’s tired from a long workday, but the kid’s going to injure himself irreparably at this rate, so he stops and helps.

It only takes a matter of minutes to get him to grip the kunai correctly, but it’s an hour more before he successfully hits the target. With a whoop and a pumped fist, the Uchiha boy jumps into Tobirama’s arms with a grin. Tobirama catches him on reflex.

“Did you see that?” he says brightly, smiling up at him with joy.

Tobirama clears his throat, uncomfortable with that much adoration being pointed directly his way. “Good job,” he says.

The kid grins, chattering on about how cool Tobirama is, and if he had such a great teacher, he’d be the best ninja in the entire world. Tobirama lets himself be conned into giving the kid a piggyback ride home and tells himself he’s not going soft. The shocked looks he gets are embarrassing, but at least no one’s afraid of him.

Just before he drops the boy off, he sees Madara grinning unabashedly at him and can’t stop the blush from coloring his cheeks. “Are you getting sick?” the kid asks, “Mom says red cheeks like that means you have a fever.” He reaches around Tobirama’s head to pat at his warm cheeks.

“I’m fine,” Tobirama says, dropping the kid down at his doorstep and body flickering away to the sound of Madara laughing in the distance. This can’t be his life.

The thing with Madara comes to a head on a day like any other. He’s sitting in their shared office, working diligently through his half of the paperwork. Madara’s sits in front of him as well, but his pen sits unused as he gazes across the room at Tobirama. His mind feels like it’s buzzing—from lack of sleep and all these months of pent up confusion and he doesn’t know what to _do_ —so when he looks up and catches Madara’s eye for the third time in just as many minutes, he snaps.

“What do you want?” he demands, throwing his pen down in a fit of pique. Madara sits back in his chair, eyebrows raised in a surprised look that quickly turns judgmental, as if Tobirama is the one breaking the rules of polite company. “You’ve been staring at me. For _months._ ”

“I haven’t—” Madara says, breaking off into indignant sputtering. “It’s not my fault so much of our work coincides like this!”

“Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you.” Tobirama stands, slamming his hands hard enough on his desk that the loud noise makes Madara jump. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Madara looks down at his work—as if Tobirama’s ire has suddenly made him the least interesting thing in the room—but doesn’t pick up his pen. Tobirama stays standing, glaring at the top of the man’s head. This awkward situation had been snowballing since they’d began sharing an office, maybe even all the way back to that last battle where Toka had opened her mouth to spill secrets that weren’t hers to spill, and he’s sick of it. They’ll fix whatever has gone wrong between them, or Tobirama will pack up his office and hole up somewhere else to do his work. This…tension is unsustainable.

Madara still won’t meet his eyes. “You have feelings for me,” he says, voice quieter and more unsure then Tobirama has ever heard it. He glances up from beneath his fringe but looks back down immediately after meeting his gaze, flush rising high on his cheeks. “Don’t you?”

Tobirama falls back into his chair with a sigh, covering his face with one hand. He blithely ignores the tremor running through it. Of all the times to bring it up, did Madara have to wait until they would both be trapped there for the remainder of the workday? Tobirama would much rather lick his wounds in peace after this. Madara would try to be kind, he was sure. It’s not in his nature to wound those he cares for, and Tobirama has found himself in that unlikely place, if only for his connection to Hashirama and Izuna. He latches onto Madara’s chakra almost without even meaning to, evening his breaths out to its bright, pulsing heat. His hands stop shaking.

“If it would make you more comfortable, perhaps I should move to a new office?” he asks, not removing his hand from his eyes. “If you don’t believe you can look past this for the sake of our working relationship.”

“Damn our working relationship!” Madara snarls with enough venom to make Tobirama lower his hand in shock. Madara looks furious, and Tobirama is once again reminded of that fateful day, when this man lunged in front of Tobirama’s blade to take a blow meant for his brother. He doesn’t know what his own expression looks like, can’t even tell what he’s feeling, but Madara’s scowl softens into something he’s never seen directed toward him. He looks almost caring, reverent, soft in a way he never has before. “I’ve been watching you, you know.”

Tobirama nods. It would be impossible not to notice the eyes so often glaring at him, as if in contempt for the way he’s made their relationship strain to the point of breaking with his unwanted affections. “You seem—kind, when you don’t think anyone’s watching,” Madara says. This time, Tobirama is the one to look away, face flushing. It was too much. “Yesterday I saw you teaching Kagami how to throw a kunai. You’re not even in the running to become a jounin sensei, are you?”

Tobirama shakes his head. “He was throwing it wrong.” Tobirama doesn’t meet his eyes, feels his hands trembling once more and wraps Madara’s chakra more firmly around himself.

“And don’t think I don’t know that half the paperwork on your desk is because you stole it from Hashirama so he could get off early to see that harpy of a wife he’s so fond of.” Tobirama doesn’t respond. He’s been made defenseless by this form of attack, by this man’s kindness. “And I know it was you who made soup for Izuna last month when he was sick.”

Tobirama hunches further into himself, Madara’s chakra almost curling around him in a hug, as if responding to his obvious distress. “Is there a reason you’re saying these things as if they should mean something to me?” He tries to keep his tone biting, but it falls much closer to begging then he’s comfortable with.

“I’ve been watching,” Madara reiterates, as if it has hidden meanings that Tobirama should be able to grasp. He doesn’t. When the silence lingers too long, Madara sighs. “I’ve been watching, and I like what I’ve seen.”

Tobirama snaps his head up so quickly, his neck cracks painfully. He rubs it idly as he locks eyes with Madara, neither blinking for an endless moment. What does that mean? Tobirama has done nothing to endear himself to this man. He can’t mean what it sounds like. He can’t—Madara sighs again.

“So, dinner?” he asks.

“Dinner?”

“Do you want to have dinner with me tonight?” Madara asks, speaking slowly, as if he were a small child. It wasn’t far off from how he feels.

“I—yes.”

“Good.” Madara finally picks up his pen and begins his work as if nothing had happened. It’s a long while before Tobirama gets back to his own. He just stares and stares and stares.


End file.
